Last Words
by Saturn's Hikari
Summary: One-shot. Legolas and Aragorn's final parting.


Name: Saturn's Hikari

Email:

Summery: Legolas and Aragorn's final parting.

Rating: PG/PG-13

Disclaimer: I don't own Legolas Aragorn or Arwen, I'm just borrowing them from Pr. Tolkien and will hope to give them back unharmed or at least not broken.

Last words

Tha-dump tha-dump tha-dump.

Your heart pounds, a base drum in your chest as you take the steps three at a time and fly down the hallway. The guards jump out of your way and faster you race.

Too late too late, your brain whispers taunting you, too late too late, the letter was sent over a week ago, he cannot still be here, too late too late…

But you speed on, despite the poisonous doubt that your mind whispers. You run, faster than you've ever done before, silent like the wind you once sang of- the only sound is the boom of your heart and the mummers in your mind.

Too late, too late, too late, too late…

You round the last corner slamming into the wall as you turn, but ignore the pain in your side.  You have to keep running, have to get there.

Too late, too late, too late…

You hit the plain double doors at a run and they burst open with a loud crash...

The room is empty.

Too late, too late, too late…

The blue banners hang lifelessly off the walls and the sunlight from the wide high windows hit the white door on the opposite side of the antechamber. There is nothing in the room but a sinking chair off to the side.

too late…

And you stare at it, that familiar chair with its faded blue back and worn scratched legs. You remember that chair plain as you remember your own name. And it has history, as much as you have history, though its starts only 100 hundred years ago, where as yours- yours starts much further back.

Your thought are interrupted by the creak of a door opening and you turn and see the white bedroom door open, creak by creak. Your heart pounds louder, tha-dump tha-dump and you just know some one will come out of that room crying.

She comes out of the room with tears streaking down her face and she doesn't notice you until she is almost right in front of you. Arwen looks right through you for a moment, but then the shadow clears a bit from her eyes and she sees you.

"Legolas. " she whispers, breathless. "I had not thought you-  thought you would…" She trails off unable to say anymore and you just hug her, your shoulders muffling her sobs. And you know you didn't come too late, there's still time.

She clings to you, tears soaking your tunic, just crying, and you know from her bleak despair that she didn't tell him goodbye, couldn't bring herself to say goodbye. Love is, after all, never saying goodbye, even when he is about to leave.

She sinks wearily into the chair, finding the strength to nod at you and then the tears start anew. The Queen of Gondor has said her last words to him and now it is your turn.

You gently push aside the plain white door and enter the room.

Your eyes go as always to the giant floor to ceiling windows on the west wall. The windows you designed and helped put in so that they would bring in the most light. The summer sun is almost setting and you follow its last rays as they stream through the open windows and land at the foot of the bed on that ugly green quilt. That was your present one year-as a joke really, you never expected it to actually be used. And here it is, same as the day it was given.

And you think you might have walked back fifty years, the bed room looks the same as is always did. Nothing is really changed.

But then you see the figure lying in the bed.

He opens his tired, tired eyes to smile up at you with his wrinkled weathered face. Old, so very old and not even near 1,000…

"Hello Legolas." He says, as you perch gently on the edge of the bed. His eyes greet yours and they take in your travel stained clothes and slightly mussed hair, and slid right around the wet spot on your shoulder. He couldn't see another cry for him, not now.

"'lo Estel." You whisper- his childhood name because before anything else, Strider the ranger, Aragorn the leader or Elssar the king, he was the child, Estel, your friend.

And because in some ways he will always be a child to you.

"You are looking well." He says and smiles at the sad little joke- aging teeth flashed to you who would never age. And indeed you do look well, how can you not? You will stay young and fair for far more than a millennium, for ever and a day…

"You are not." You comment wryly, trying to make it into jest like what you said to him so many years before. 'You're late. You look terrible'

But he takes your words seriously and only shrugs.

"I'm dying."

And then you realize that in some ways he's far older than you could ever be.

"I know.", and really you've always known.

"I shall miss you." He offers with that same childish look that you've seen so many times before. And you could just hug him and then you do- an immortal clinging desperately to a dying mortal. A mortal who really was always dying, who always had an invisible hourglass hanging above his head slowly running out of time. And now that time is up.

"I shall miss you, too." You tell him, and for a moment he's not old and wrinkled, he's the little boy you first met and the young man you went on adventures with. Then you let him go to fall back on his pillows and he's old and dying again and he's blinking back tears same as you.

"Get me a cup of tea, will you, Legolas?" he asks in his old leathery voice, like dry sandpaper, showing none of the frustration you know he feels at being bedridden. He accepts that fact, like he accepts being so old.

You lightly spring up and go to the little side table against the wall. The tea pot, still hot, tea cups and even the little saucers are there, the ones with the blue trim that Faramir, long gone, made as a coronation present. It's so thin that you can see the tea through it as you pour his cup. So very thin and frail.

And you stand there for a moment, grasping the hot cup in both your hands just looking at him.

His hair is grey now, a thick deep grey color that halos his head. It's the same length, though still about chin length, but his stubble is gone and so is the beard he had for a short time. His skin is a darker tan with lines in lighter tan and it folds and bags around him.

He has freckles again; old age spots and for an odd moment you think to count the spots, like dots on a ladybug, and see if it will tell you how old he is.

Estel raises a bushy brow at you, a trick he must have learned from his foster father for it looks so much like Elrond that you might think Estel stole his forehead.

"Would you like my tea? You can get me another one, I care not."

You shake your head, blond wisps flying out of the already messy braids and hand him his tea. But you don't sit back down. You stare at him, sipping his tea, and your heart breaks again, from the halves it already was in.

/He is dyingAnd the entity of this finally hits you.

/He is dying, dying. Gone. He will be gone, and you will never ever see him again because he will be dead and dead and gone and he shall never sing or joke or laugh or anything ever again because soon he shall be dead dead dead dead…/

You stand there, as these thoughts race through your head and the room seems to close in on you and walls press in and suddenly it's hard to breath as you struggle for breath.

And then a breeze blows in from the open window, and it brings the breath of the sea. And you hate it as you love it. It pulls you, yet you could not leave your friend upon this shore- that would break your heart even more than not answering the driving call that sings you still to madness and splits your heart into two. So you have stayed.

Ai, the sea, the sea

It has called to you for so long, but never before have you heard it so.

'Sail away,' it calls 'Come. Leave these mortal troubles behind. Rest. Sail away.' And the force behind that siren call sends you reeling, lost in a wave of longing.

And you find yourself walking to the window to stare out over the city at the grassy plains and the river that flows to the sea. And though even your keen elven eyesight can not see the sea from here, in your mind it is there- The crashing waves, keening gulls that dance through the blue blue sky above the blue green ocean the seems to go on and on forever. It is always in your mind.

Behind you, you hear the rustle of sheets as he pulls himself up into a sitting position and says:

"You will sail then."

You nod, but do not turn to him.

 You would take him with you, steal him away and take him and Arwen and their children and everyone else you'd ever cared about on the ship to the Undying Lands. But you know that he could not go, would not go because he lived for Gondor's people, his people, and he would die as one of them.

A tear escapes down your check and the sea breeze dries it. You would sail. Soon there would be nothing left here to make you stay. Perhaps the voice of the sea could drown out your memories of their laughter. But in your heart you know it will not. That is why you could stay here so long, with out breaking so, going mad as others had. Your love for your friends outweighed you lust for the sea. Becouse Sam and Pippin and Faramir and Merry and Eomer and Eowyn and Aragorn were here.

But they are all long gone beyond the circles of this world and Aragorn is left. And Aragorn, too, will pass. Soon you will be alone.

"I am weary, Aragorn Estel. So very tired." You hear yourself say, but your mind does not follow the words you say. It sees the sea, the sea and the paradise across it.

You would sail, but what then would be left there, on the distant shores of Valinor? Other Elves, but they are not the ones you love. Your father is still here, stubbornly refusing to give up his home, and your people still stay in Ithillen.  The twin sons of Elrond, dear friends, stay here also and you know not what they have chosen- mortal life or immortality. Arwen chose long ago and she dies now with her love. Elrohir and Elladan, too, may stay and die.

No mortal friends, no immortal ones. You would be alone, then. Forever and day in paradise, but to you, you wonder, could it ever be a paradise? No one with you…

/alone, alone upon empty shore, a-dock, a-dock upon silent sands…/

"You shall take Gimil with you." He says, to break the silence and it is almost as though he knows your mind before you do.

Gimli? Gimli!

 You shall not be alone! Gimli shall be there! And in your head you laugh- to have forgotten Gimli. He would bash you over the head with his ax if he knew, your  naugrim. Ai, the dwarf would never know. You turn from you window to look back at Aragorn, Estel. Truly he was aptly named hope .

"Ay, I must take the fool dwarf along. He insists upon going with me. Said he would stowaway if I didn't let him on." You laugh at the memory of this, the stubborn dwarf scowling up at you and demanding to have a seat on the ship you are building.

"And for a while I was quite tempted to not let him, just to see what happened when we reached the Undying lands 'Why no, my Lords, there is a dwarf aboard? I have absolutely no idea how that happened…'"

You continue with your impressions, just to see him laugh and smile. Mostly you talk of Gimli, happily complaining about the stupid stubborn dwarf and all his faults. He smiles as you chatter to fill the silence and you know he thinks that you don't really mean the insults you say about Gimli, son of Gloin. He doesn't know how much you mean them, for your bond with Gimli, son of Glion, is a strange one.

Whereas the one you share with him is simple, aching complex in it simplicity.

"… and of all the stupid idiotic things to do. The fool then has the urge to get back into the canoe and say ' Come on, we 're going do it all over again!' After I had to go save him from certain doom by rapids. It is a wonder that dwarves are still living, after all the insane things they get into. That time we were here visiting you and Gimli…"

He starts to nod off sometime into your rant on Gimli, but you'll excuse him for not paying attention, your complaints about Gimli has become almost a habitual thing and all he might miss is a couple new interesting insults. Besides humans tire so easily and so fast, you are lucky he was able to stay awake this long.

"Estel," You say as you gently shake his shoulder and he sleepily looks up at you, "I'll be back tomorrow." And you will. No matter what happens.

"I don't know if I'll be back tomorrow." He tells his pillow, already slipping back into mortal dream-land. Your throat is dry and the words wither in your mouth, but you get them out all the same in a low whisper.

"'Til next we meet, then." You whisper as you tuck a stray strand behind his ear. You have always said that when the time has come for you to part ways, and the time has come once again to part them, though you shall part them oh so much deeper this time.

He stirs and turns to look at you as you pull your hand back and start to turn away. A thin bony hand grips your wrist and grey eyes stare up into your own.

"Ay, 'Til next we meet." He mummers, and there's message in the deep depths of his eyes.

And you nod and slowly slip your wrist out of his loosening grip. He closes his eyes; his breathing tells you that he's back asleep and there is a slight smile upon his lips as you look back at him for the last time. And it is the last time.

And then you slip out the door, and you can't help but grin as you shut it. Love may never say good-bye, but Friendship never needs to.

Til next we meet.


End file.
